


Set You Free

by myashke



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-16
Updated: 2011-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-24 16:05:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myashke/pseuds/myashke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Happy, for the Merlin_Games Team Canon Team Building fic exchange!</p><p>Prompt: A picture of Merlin in the rain  + “The truth will set you free."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set You Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [happyevraftr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=happyevraftr).



They both had to duck to clear the door frame as they entered the fall-down cabin. Arthur tripped on something and Merlin ran right into him, one hand on the small of Arthur’s back to steady them both.

“You could at least wait until we get on the bed to jump on top of me, Merlin,” Arthur joked, his voice a little strained toward the end as Merlin’s eyes went wide and he stopped breathing just so he didn’t make a sound.

There was no way Arthur could see his flushed face in the darkness between them – how had he realized Merlin’s reaction? Maybe Arthur was just so in tune with him that he could sense when Merlin was thinking _those_ thoughts.

Which was pretty much always, so if Arthur was guessing, his odds were good.

“Stop thinking so loudly.” Arthur turned to face him, then, their faces close enough that Merlin could feel his breath. “You’re going to give me a headache.”

“That’d be our luck for you to get a headache on top of everything else,” Merlin groused, raising his palm to gauge Arthur’s temperature for the twentieth time that day. Arthur sighed but didn’t knock his hand away as Merlin had thought he might. His fever seemed to have truly broken, but Merlin noticed a fine trembling shiver to Arthur’s shoulders as he let his hand fall away. “You’re trembling, fever or no. Let’s find the fireplace and flint and get you warm.”

Not that getting warm was at all likely, not unless Arthur fell asleep and afforded Merlin the chance to heat the little cabin properly. He might even be able to get away with drying their clothes if Arthur slept for awhile.

“I’m perfectly fine. It’s bloody freezing out there and I’m soaked to the bone. You’re shivering tenfold as much as I am, you know.” Arthur began feeling his way along the walls, knocking things from shelves with his clumsy, frozen hands.

It was true - Merlin was shivering and miserable, too. He felt so water-logged, like his skin might slide right off his bones from the heavy, sopping feeling of it. He ran numb fingers along the mantle and found the flint. Stooping, he laid a hand over the bits of kindling still in the fireplace. They were soft with wet, useless, of course, what with all of the leaks in the thatch roof overhead. “I’ve found the flint, but the tinder’s soaked. “

“You’re just full of good news, aren’t you?” Arthur asked, shoving a pot to the floor and kicking it across the small room. “We should never have left the horses.”

Merlin bit his tongue. Hard. He’d been the one to protest the idea in the first place, but had Arthur listened? Did he _ever_?

Despite plenty of past proof to the contrary, Arthur still always believed they would prevail.

“Well, come on, Merlin, don’t just stand there!” Arthur said impatiently, as though he thought Merlin should have already solved their every problem.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked incredulously, throwing open the door to the cabin and gesturing out at the thick curtain of rain. “There’s not a scrap of dry wood within ten leagues and I am _not_ budging from here until that rain lets up.”

Arthur sighed heavily and leant heavily against the central pillar of the single room, watching as Merlin propped open the door with a stone and used the light from the door to see by. He went to the cabinet and gathered up a few pots and bowls, setting them on the ground to catch the worst of the leaks in the roof. He closed the door again when he was through, not willing to let in a single drop of water more.

“We’ll burn the chair,” Arthur grunted, holding up a spindly-looking chair and slamming it to the dirt floor, trampling on its rungs and arms like it was a giant spider he was determined to squash.

Merlin stared, tempted to laugh at first, then tempted in an altogether different way as the blue-white light of a lightning strike lit up the room and Arthur’s face.

His hair was plastered to his forehead, fringe all swept to one side. It kissed the skin at his temples and neck wetly, leaving glistening trails of water to trace along his cheekbones and down his throat, disappearing beneath his collar. Merlin wanted to follow them down to Arthur’s chest and see exactly what path they’d take along his skin.

Arthur had stripped off his water-logged jacket and was in his shirt sleeves, both of them rolled hastily up his arms. His muscles flexed as he snapped the wood of the chair into small pieces and Merlin had to bite his tongue not to flinch every time the wood cracked.

He hated it, to be honest – the tension strung so taut between them that a single slip could send everything into chaos. They were barely friends when things got this bad, certainly not friendly. And without the knights to distract Arthur and let Merlin escape until whatever it was between them had simmered down to a manageable level, Merlin was stuck with silence.

Merlin took a deep breath and fetched the pieces of the former chair, forcing his eyes to the fireplace as Arthur began to strip off. He caught sight of the broad chest and powerful biceps before he could stop himself.

“I’ll hang them up – toss them here when you’re through,” Merlin said, not looking back over his shoulder though he wanted to so badly he could taste it. He could smell the scent of Arthur’s skin, slick with crisp, clean rain but all Arthur beneath.

Arthur’s wet tunic landed with a slap against the back of his neck and Merlin yanked it off, staring at the wad of soaked cloth for a moment before Arthur’s breeches and smalls followed. He caught those, at least, eyes darting to Arthur’s nude form and then away again as the material splatted against his chest.

Arthur was staring back at him, his hand rubbing over his half-hard cock in a lazy, casual way that made heat radiate from the base of Merlin’s spine out to every part of him. Gods, Arthur was beautiful. So confident, so strong...

Merlin cleared his throat to be sure his desire wouldn’t show in his voice as he tried to distract himself. “Don’t suppose you have any food left in your pack?” he asked, keeping his tone casual as if food wasn’t a very real concern when they were lost and on foot, nonetheless.

“We can hunt, Merlin,” Arthur snapped, leaning down to test the soundness of the bed frame before whapping the mattress to free it of dust and sitting down with heavy sigh.

“You’re going to run the rabbits through with your sword?” Merlin teased, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Don’t worry - I can fish.”

“You can fish,” Arthur echoed, his flat tone speaking volumes about what he thought of that idea.

Obviously, he’d never seen Merlin fish before.

“Just worry about the fire for now. You keep first watch,” Arthur murmured sleepily, turning onto his stomach in that familiar, enticing sprawl of his, wiggling his hips down against the lumpy old mattress.

Merlin pressed the heel of his hand against his aching cock and rubbed through his breeches, stifling a groan. He quickly lit the fire and very soon had a modest blaze going, Arthur’s dripping clothes wrung out and hung up. He pushed warmth through the little cabin, just enough that it could have been the fire’s doing, but also enough that Arthur wouldn’t be kept awake by the cold.

He was just waiting for Arthur to fall asleep, just listening to his slowing, deepening breaths, the barely-perceptible way Arthur stroked his foot along the mattress just before he sank into slumber.

When Merlin heard it, he counted to thirty and stood, pulling his own tunic and breeches off and slinging them over the low cross-beams of the roof. He got a face full of water for his trouble, but in the next breath, every stitch and every inch of his skin was perfectly dry.

Slowly, he walked over to Arthur’s sleeping form, looking his fill now that Arthur was sound asleep. The firelight played over his skin, glowing warmly on skin that Merlin knew to be unnaturally soft. And smooth – Arthur’s skin was smooth and pleasantly warm every time Merlin had touched him, his muscles firm and strong beneath, but his skin...

Merlin’s eyes followed the long lines of Arthur’s muscles from his shoulders downward, down along his spine, out beneath his shoulder-blades, back in along the fine lines of his ribs. There were a few soft curves where Arthur’s spine could be seen, but then they gave way to a dip that trailed all the way down to his arse.

He closed his eyes then, shaking his head and clenching his fists to keep from reaching out. Warily, he opened his palm over Arthur’s body and cast, the spell breaking the silence and hanging in the air as though it wanted to witness Merlin’s weakness.

He opened his eyes and drew in a breath as Arthur looked up at him. Merlin started to stumble backward, away from the impending disaster, but Arthur’s fingers closed tightly around his wrist and jerked him forward again. He fell, one knee hitting the edge of the bed, the other crushed beneath Arthur’s weight as he rolled Merlin beneath him, pinning him.

They stared at one another, the strangled moan pushing out of Merlin’s throat in lieu of the words he couldn’t find.

Arthur shook his head very slightly, his hands loosening their grip on Merlin’s wrists but not letting go.

Merlin wanted to apologize, to reel the last few moments in and weave them back into the fold of time, but he could do neither. He didn’t have the right, even if he’d had the power.

“No more secrets,” Arthur breathed out, pressing Merlin’s arms into the mattress with an emphatic shove. “Swear it.”

Merlin nodded. It was what he wanted, too, what he’d wanted for so long.

“Say it.” Arthur’s gaze darted to Merlin’s lips and Merlin licked them, the words forming without thought, without effort.

“I swear to you. No secrets between us from this moment on,” he whispered, his voice breaking on the final words as Arthur rocked their hips together, their bare skin sliding together.

“And you’re mine,” Arthur said, low and rough as though he was every bit as effected as Merlin.

“Always,” Merlin agreed breathlessly, offering his throat as Arthur’s lips pressed beneath his jaw.

Held in the warmth of the tiny cabin, bathed in the soft, flickering light of the fire, they melted together. Merlin gave himself over to it more freely and openly than he’d done anything since he’d met Arthur. There were no terms here, no conditions or restrictions or looking out for a Prince’s or a kingdom’s well-being.

There was nothing left to hold back, nothing left to come between them.

For the first time since he'd become Arthur's servant, Merlin was completely free.


End file.
